New York – US, British, French Delegations Walk Out On Ahmadinejad United Nations Speech

New York – Representatives of many Western nations walked out of a major nuclear review conference at the United Nations on Monday, just as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took the podium.

Israel deliberately took absence from the summit as it began its month-long review of the Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty (NPT) at the UN headquarters in New York. While a number of foreign dignatories were expected to address the review summit, Ahmadinejad was the only head of state to deliver a speech.

The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations had contacted ambassadors of the UN member states and placed ads in major newspapers earlier Monday urging the ambassadors to walk out when the Iranian president began to speak.

Representatives of the United States, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Hungary and a handful of other countries followed through with this request and left the auditorium.

Ahmadinejad called for states that threaten to use atomic weapons to be punished, a clear reference to a new U.S. nuclear strategy released last month and alled for the United States to be suspended from the UN atomic watchdog’s executive board over its threats to use nuclear weapons.

Speaking at a meeting of the 189 signatories of the 1970 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), he urged “considering any threat to use nuclear weapons or attack against peaceful nuclear facilities as a breach of international peace and security.”

Such threats should meet with “swift reaction from the United Nations and termination of all cooperation of NPT member states with the threatening aggressor state,” Ahmadinejad said.

“How can the United States be a member of the board of governors when it used nuclear weapons against Japan” and also used depleted uranium weapons in the war against Iraq, he added in a speech that triggered a walkout by delegates from nuclear-armed Britain, France and the United States.

Ahmadinejad is also rejecting allegations that his country is developing nuclear weapons, citing “not a single credible proof.”

The delegations of the United States, Britain and France all walked out of the U.N. General Assembly chamber during the Iranian president’s speech.

Among the punishments that should be meted out to countries that use, or threaten to use, atomic weapons against other nations is suspension from the board of governors of the U.N. nuclear watchdog in Vienna, Ahmadinejad said.

The United States’ so-called nuclear posture review reduces the role of atomic weapons in U.S. defense policy but does not rule out the use of nuclear warheads against countries like Iran and North Korea that are considered to be NPT violators.

Both the United States and Israel have suggested that they could use military force against Iranian nuclear facilities, which they suspect are part of a covert atomic weapons program. Iran denies pursuing atomic weapons and insists its nuclear ambitions are limited to peacefully generating electricity.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon opened the conference on Monday by challenging Iran to provide proof that its advanced nuclear programs were for peaceful purposes, amid the international row that has surrounded Tehran’s atomic ambitions.

“I encourage the president of Iran to engage constructively,” Ban told He made the comments just moments before Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad began his address to the body.

“Let us be clear: the onus in on Iran to clarify the doubts and concerns about its programs,” Ban said. The United States and its allies are pushing for UN Security Council sanctions to punish the Islamic republic over its nuclear activities, which they believe are aimed toward developing atomic weapons.

In his opening address to the summit, the UN chief called on Iran to comply with UN Security Council resolutions and “fully cooperate” with the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA].

“I encourage Iran to accept the nuclear fuel supply proposal put forward by the agency,” he said. “This would be an important confidence-building measure.”

He also urged action to rid the world of nuclear weapons. “The world’s people look to you for action,” Ban told a packed UN General Assembly with government envoys attending the conference held once every five years to assess progress in nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation.

Ban said eliminating nuclear weapons is a possibility, but the UN agenda on disarmament has been “asleep for too long.”

“Sixty-five years later, the world still lives under the nuclear shadow,” Ban said referring to the atomic bomb set off by the United States over Hiroshima, Japan in August 1945, which put an end to World War II in the Pacific. Ban said he will travel to Japan this year to mark the 65th anniversary.

“How long must we wait to rid ourselves of this threat?” he said in an address opening the conference. “How long will we keep passing the problem to succeeding generations?”

Ban proposed a five-point plan to make the NPT conference a success, including a demand for the world’s nuclear powers – the United States, Russia, China, France and China – to unequivocally undertake to eliminate their arsenals of nuclear warheads. There are an estimated 23,000 warheads in the arsenals of those five countries and other countries with nuclear capability.